NYT article: Surviving the College Tour

Parents Forum
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<p>The young woman walking through the San Francisco airport was a classic California blonde - legs up to her ear lobes, a skirt the size of a headband with the letters S-T-A-N-F-O-R-D dancing across the buttocks. I looked from this fashion statement to my 16-year-old daughter, Sierra, and realized I was seeing the future. </p>

<p>In the next few days she would acquire similar attire and, if all went well, a new address. The college tour was upon us. A force of nature had us in its clutches as we wandered California like the annual migration of the wildebeests or, more aptly, the cliff dive of the lemmings.</p>

<p>Survivors of the experience had given me tons of advice. See for yourself if it helped.</p>

<p>TREAT THE EVENT AS VACATION The whole family tagged along for this holiday, one that would ultimately cost far more than a week at Club Med. We began our tour at the Powell Street cable car in San Francisco. As we waited to board, a street musician warmed up the crowd. “How many Deadheads does it take to change a light bulb? None. They watch it burn out, then follow it around for 30 years.”</p>

<p>I took this as an omen. I would not use the college tour as a pretext to wax nostalgic about my school years. For one thing, I am still under disciplinary probation at Trinity College in Hartford. (For taking over the administration building and briefly holding the trustees captive, the college has put a red flag on my student file that remains until I apologize.)</p>

<p>We wandered about Fisherman’s Wharf, admiring the street performers, the silver-painted human statues, the rap artists. The “real world” is full of examples of what happens to people who don’t go to college. One guy peered out at us from inside a sanitation can. He held up a sign that said “White Trash” and shouted warnings: “Stay in school. Don’t turn out like me.” I gave him a dollar.</p>

<p>STAY IN THE BACKGROUND Parents are supposed to hang back and let their children ask the questions. My job was to keep notes that would let us sort through impressions at a later date. I tried to get the pulse of each place by reading the campus newspaper.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/education/edlife/petersen.html?ex=1116993600&en=db7907fdf3785296&ei=5070[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/education/edlife/petersen.html?ex=1116993600&en=db7907fdf3785296&ei=5070&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;